"Leinster, Murray - The Fifth-Dimension Tube UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

THE three men, with Evelyn, worked until dawn at the rest of their preparations for the use of the Tube. All that time the laboratory was filled with the heavy fragrance of a tree-fern jungle upon an unknown planet. The heavy, sicklysweet scents of closed jungle blossoms filled their nostrils. The reek of feverishly growing green things saturated the air. A steady wind blew down the Tube, and it bore innumerable unfamiliar odors into the laboratory. Once a gigantic moth bumped and blundered into the Tube, and finally crawled heavily out into the light. It was scaled, and terrible because of its monstrous size, but it had broken a wing and could not fly. So it crawled with feverish haste toward a brilliant electric light. Its eyes were especially horrible because they were not compound like the moths of Earth. They were single, like those of a man, and were fixed in an expression of utter, fascinated hypnosis. The thing looked horribly human with those eyes staring from an insectТs head, and Smithers killed it in a flash of nerve-racked horror. None of them was able to go on with their work until the thing and its fascinated, staring eyes had been put out of sight. Then they labored on with the smell of the jungles of that unnamed planet thick about them, and noises now and then coming down the Tube. There were roars, and growlings, and once there was a thin high sound which seemed like the far-distant, death-startled scream of a man.

CHAPTER II
The Death Mist

TOMMY Reames saw the red sun rise while he was on guard at the mouth of the Tube. The tree-ferns above him came into view as vague gray outlines. The many-colored stars grew pale. And presently a bit of crimson light peeped through the jungle somewhere. It moved along the horizon and
very slowly grew higher. For a moment, Tommy saw the huge, dull-red ball that was the sun of this alien planet. Queer mosses took form and color in the daylight, displaying colors never seen on Earth. He saw flying things dart among the tree-fern fronds, and some were scaled and some were not, but none of them was feathered.
Then a tiny buzzing noise. The telephone that now rested below the lip of the Tube was being used from the laboratory.
УSmithers will relieve you,Ф said DenhamТs voice in the receiver. УCome on down. WeТre not the only people experimenting with the Fifth Dimension. JacaroТs been working, and all hellТs loose!Ф
Tommy slid down the Tube in an instant. The four rightangled turns made him sick and dizzy again, but he came out with his jaw set grimly. There was good reason for TommyТs interest in Jacaro. Besides three bullet wounds, Tommy owed Jacaro something for stealing the first model Tube.
He emerged in the laboratory on his hands and knees as the size of the Tube made necessary. Smithers smiled placidly at him and crawled in to take his place.
УWhat the devilТs happened?Ф demanded Tommy.
Denham was bitter. He held a newspaper before him. Evelyn had brought coffee and the morning paper to the laboratory. She seemed rather pale.
УJacaroТs gotten through too!Ф snapped Denham. УHeТs gotten in a pack of trouble. And heТs loosed the devil on Earth. HereЧlook!Ф He jabbed his finger at one headline. УAnd hereЧ and here!Ф He thrust at others. УHereТs proof.Ф
The first headline read: УKING JACARO FORFEITS BOND.Ф Smaller headings beneath it read: УRacketeer Missing for Income Tax Trial. $200,000 Bail Forfeited.Ф The second headline was in smaller type: УMonster Lizard Killed! Giant Meat Eater Brought Down by Riflemen. Akin to Ancient Dinosaurs, Say Scientists.Ф

"JACAROТS missing,Ф said Denham harshly. УThis article says heТs vanished, and with him a dozen of his most
prominent gunmen. You know he had a model catapult to duplicateЧthe one he got from you. Von Holtz could arrange
the construction of a big Tube for him. And he knew about the Golden City. Look!Ф
His finger, trembling, tapped on the flashlight picture of the giant lizard of which the story told. And it was a giant. A rope had upheld a colossal, leering, reptilian head while men with rifles posed self-consciously beside the dead creature. It was as big as a horse, and at first glance its kinship to the extinct dinosaurs of Earth was plain. Huge teeth in sharklike rows. A long, trailing tail. But there was a collar about the beastthingТs neck.
УIt had killed and was devouring a cow when they shot it,Ф said Denham bitterly. УThereТve been reports of these creatures for daysЧso the news story says. They werenТt printed because nobody believed them. But there are a couple of people missing. A searching party was hunting for them. They found this!Ф
Tommy Reames stared at the picture. His face went grimmer still. He thought of sounds he had heard beyond the Tube, not long since.
УThereТs no question where they came from. The Fifth Dimension. But if Jacaro brought them back, heТs a fool.Ф
УJacaroТs missing,Ф said Denham savagely. УDonТt you understand? He could get through to the Golden City. These beast-things are proof somebody did. And these things came down the Tube that somebody traveled through. Jacaro wouldnТt send them, but somebody did. TheyТve got collars around their necks! Who sent them? And why?Ф

TOMMYТS eyes narrowed.
УIf civilized man found the mouth of a Tube, it would seem like the mouth of an artificial tunnel or a caveЧФ
УAnd if annoying vermin, like JacaroТs gunmenФЧDenhamТs voice was brittleЧФhad come out of it, why, intelligent men might send something living and deadly down it, as men on Earth will send ferrets down a rat-hole! To wipe out the breed! ThatТs whatТs happened! JacaroТs gone through and attacked the Golden City. TheyТve found his Tube. And theyТve sent these things down. . .
УIf we found rats coming from a rat-hole,Ф said Tommy very
quietly, Уand ferrets went down and didnТt come up, weТd gas them.Ф
УAnd so,Ф Denham told him, Уso would the Golden City.Ф
He pointed to a boxed double-paragraph news story under a leaded twenty-point headline: УPoisonous Fog Kills Wild Life.Ф
The story was not alarming. It said merely that state game wardens had found numerous dead game animals in a thinlysettled district near Coltsville, N.Y., and on investigation had found a bank of mist, all of half a mile across, which seemed to have caused the trouble. State chemists and biologists were investigating the phenomenon. Curiously, the bank of mist seemed not to dissipate in a normal fashion. Samples of the fog were being analyzed. It was probably akin to the Belgian fogs which on several occasions had caused much loss of life. The mist was especially interesting because in sunlight it displayed prismatic colorings. State troopers were warning the inhabitants of the neighborhood.
УThe gassingТs started,Ф said Denham savagely. УI know a gas that shows rainbow colors. The Golden City uses it. So weТve got to find JacaroТs Tube and seal it, or only God knows what will come out of it next. IТm going off, Tommy. You and Smithers guard our Tube. Blow it up, if necessary. ItТs dangerous. IТll get some authority in Albany, and weТll find JacaroТs Tube and blast it shut.Ф
Tommy nodded, his eyes keen and thoughtful. Denham hurried out.

MINUTES later, only, they heard the roar of a car motor going down the long lane away from the laboratory. Evelyn tried to smile at Tommy.
УIt seems terrible, dangerous.Ф
Tommy considered and shrugged.
УThis news is old,Ф he observed. УThis paper was printed last night. I think IТll make a couple of long-distance calls. If the Golden CityТs had trouble with Jacaro, itТs going to make things bad for us.Ф
He swept his eyes about and frowningly loaded a light rifle. He put it convenient to EvelynТs hand and made for the dwelling-house and the telephone. It was odd that as he emerged into the open air, the familiar smells of Earth struck his nos
trils as strange and unaccustomed. The laboratory was redolent of the tree-fern forest into which the Tube extended. And Smithers was watching amid those dank, incredible carboniferous-period growths now.
Tommy put through calls, seeing all his and DenhamТs plans for a peaceful exploration party and amicable contact with the civilization of that other planet utterly shattered by presumed outrages by Jacaro. He made call after call, and his demands for information grew more urgent as he got closer to the source of trouble. His cause for worry was verified long before he had finished. Even as he made the first call, New York newspapers had crowded a second-grade murder off their front pages to make room for the white mist upstate.

THE early-morning editions had termed it a Уpoisonous fog.Ф The breakfast editions spoke of it as a Уpoison fog.Ф But it grew and moved and by the time Tommy had a clear line to get actual information about it, a tabloid had christened it the УDeath MistФ and there were three chartered planes circling about it for the benefit of their newspapers. State troopers were being reinforced. At ten oТclock it was necessary to post extra traffic police to take care of the cars headed upstate to look at the mystery. At eleven it began to move! Sluggishly, to be sure, and rather raggedly, but it undoubtedly moved, and as undoubtedly it moved independently of the wind.
It was at twelve-thirty that the first casualty occurred. Before that time, the police had frantically demanded that the flood of sightseers be stopped. The Death Mist covered a square mile or more. It clung to the ground, nowhere more than fifty or sixty feet high, and glittered with all the colors of the rainbow. It moved with a velocity of anywhere from ten to twenty miles an hour. In its path were a myriad small tragediesЧnesting birds stiff and still, and rabbits and other small furry bodies contorted in queer agonized postures. But until twelve-thirty no human beings were known to be its victims.
Then, though, it was moving blindly across the wind with a thin trailing edge behind it and a rolling billow of descending mist as its forefront. It rolled up to and across a concrete highway, watched by perspiring motor cops who had performed miracles in clearing a path for it among the horde of
sightseeing cars. It swept on into a spindling pine wood. Behind it lay a thinning sheet of vaporЧthick white mist which seemed to rise and move more swiftly to overtake the main body. It lay across the highway in a sheet which was ten feet deep, then thinned to six, to three. .

THE mist was no more than a foot thick when a party of motorists essayed to drive through it as through a sheet of water. They dodged a swearing motorcycle cop and, yelling hilariously, plunged forward. It happened that they had not more than a hundred yards to go, so the whole thing was plainly seen.